10 Songs That Inspired Amos Lee's New Album

Amos Lee says he doesn't listen to a lot of music, but when he does, he's obsessive."I'll get stuck on a song for a week or two," says the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter, who typically uses Spotify or YouTube to discover new tunes and then adds the songs he loves to his iPod. "Where I live, in Philadelphia, I walk everywhere. I'll put something on my iPod and listen on repeat for a long time."

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Lee isn't shy about the fact that the music he put on his iPod across the second half of 2012, when he was working on his fifth solo album, had an influence on the resulting album, Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song, out tomorrow.

"Sometimes I listened sober, sometimes somber," says Lee, who recorded his set with producer Jay Joyce (Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin) in a converted East Nashville church. "It's not always a literal connection between the listening of a song and the inspiration of another. It's more like being around someone you really like. They inspire you to do some new stuff or think in different ways. They free up space for you. And a lot of these songs freed me up to be inspired."

We asked Lee for a sampling of those songs, tunes that freed up space for Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song. Listen to them below or on our Spotify playlist.

Paul Brady, "Lakes of Ponchartrain"

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"It's a traditional Irish song. The song is basically about being somewhere that's not your home and being taken in by a woman. At first he doesn't understand what's going on with her. He thinks maybe she's a prostitute. 'Why is she talking to me?' And basically he falls in love with this woman who takes care of him for no reason other than that's what she does.

"For me, the way the song moves intrigues me. I didn't really get the song 'til I learned how to play it myself. When you feel how it moves under your hands and fingers it can be very enlightening as a writer — that's the cool thing about being a songwriter, sometimes you can inhabit someone's skin through a song. When you put a guitar in your hand and a melody and story unfolds, you're the storyteller all of a sudden and you have to live through it. I love the way the song plays itself."

Rev. James Cleveland, "I Stood on the Banks of Jordan"

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"Rev. James Cleveland is somebody I just came across in a YouTube rabbit hole. I was trying to find a live recording from Thomas A. Dorsey and I just came across this fellow. I know now that he's a legend in the gospel world, but at the time I had no idea. He's just giving it, sweating and screaming, and playing so beautifully — I love his piano playing so much. There's something about how personal it all is. He gives you this matter-of-fact depiction of how he lost his parents and everything that meant anything to him and he's still there to tell you about it in a strong and beautiful way. I would love to just sit and listen to him sing all day. I never tire of it."

Howard Tate, "Jemima Surrender"

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"It's a Band song. It's kind of blasphemous, but I like the way he does it better. He's actually a guy from the Philly area and was out of the scene for a long time and in the nineties somebody came across him and the album got re-released. He's one of those dudes that made one really amazing album and went away for a while. He sings great and it's funky — his phrasing is amazing. I love those singers that can get behind the beat. To me, that's where the birth of a lot of hip-hop stuff comes from, playing with the meter within the meter."

Solomon Burke , "That's How I Got to Memphis"

"I've been a fan for a long time. The good thing about some of the subscription music services is you can have someone's whole catalogue there and jump around it, discovering new stuff. There's something about a singer as great as Solomon Burke in a small room with just a couple of instruments singing a great song. There's just an upright, a guitar, and him. It's so stripped-down. You hear the room. It's almost like, 'Damn, I get to be in a room with Solomon Burke.' That's the magic."

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Levon Helm, "The Mountain"

"We got a chance to do the Midnight Ramble in 2011. We sat right behind Levon while he was playing. For me, it was overwhelming, like, 'Am I really here?' It was surreal. I think as much as any music experience I've ever had, it was a big wake-up call. I'd been touring pretty hard and I think I lost my way in terms of keeping the spirit right in myself. And after that night I've never been the same. I felt reinvigorated and reinspired when I left that barn in a way I didn't think was possible. And when Levon passed it went even deeper. For a month or two after, all we played except the songs in our set, especially at jams after the shows, were Levon and Band songs. Man, I love it all."

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Judee Sill, "The Kiss"

"Ten years or so ago, my bandmate Zach Djanikian hipped me to Judee Sill. There's a YouTube version from the old BBC show The Old Grey Whistle Test that absolutely kills me. Before we made the new record, I would watch it on my couch with whatever bottle I had and I'd just listen to this song two or three hours straight. To me, Judee Sill strips it right down. All the romantic ideals, she strips them down and puts them inside of you in a beautiful way. There's plenty of beautiful love songs out there, but if you asked me to rank those, this would be at the very top. This speaks to me in a real way about love like no other song I know of."

Merle Haggard, "Kern River"

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"I got to tour with Merle some and fell deep into his catalogue. He's such a great writer and he's written so many amazing songs. Something about this one is so stark, the idea of somebody you love being taken away by a river. Whether it's literal or metaphorical, we've all felt that way before. We've all said, 'I'm never going there again.' And I think it's one of his best. His voice is so rich, he almost doesn't have to sing half the time. It's effortless, kind of like breathing for hm. He's given us all a bit of himself every time he plays it."

Blaze Foley, "Cold Cold World"

"I think most people's entry point to Blaze is Lucinda Williams's 'Drunken Angel.' I knew about Lucinda's relation to him and I'd listen to John Prine's version of his 'Clay Pigeons.' But after touring with Lucinda, I decided to dig deeper. If he's somebody that moved Lucinda like that, I better check that out. I wish more people knew about Blaze. 'Cold Cold World'? Hank Williams could have written that song. If you love songs and love songwriters, he's essential listening to me."

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The Band, "Ain't No More Cane"

"I picked this one up from Oliver Wood of the Wood Brothers. Sometimes you don't get a chance to understand a song 'til you sing it. And these old prison songs take you to another era of American history. This is how people were living. 'Captain, don't you do me like you done poor old Shine.' You have to go back and research the language to understand what he's even saying. It's like Cool Hand Luke kind of shit."

Dave Van Ronk, "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me"

"It's another prison song. You just get there, right into the scene. One of the first records I ever got was a Dave Van Ronk record. There's this one little walk down that you do that makes the whole song move. The movement of the song enriches the way the story moves. It's one of those folk songs that's always going to be in the pantheon of great American songs."